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The CARIFORUM- EU Economic Partnership Agreement may not mean much to you but it certainly makes a significant difference on the national level. The director general of CARIFORUM, which serves  as a base for economic dialogue with the European Union, is in Belize to discuss with Belizean stakeholders how they can optimize their benefits under the EPA to increase economic development. Here is more from the preliminary session.

Percival Marie - Director General, CARIFORUM
"Today we are meeting in Belize to organize the national seminar on services under the economic partnership agreement. At this seminar, we will try to explain to officials but both public and private sector officials in Belize what our obligations are under the agreement, what commitments we made under that agreement to the European Union. We will also attempt to see to our colleagues in Belize what opportunities exist to exploit the agreement for the economic benefit of Belize that is to develop in trade and services with the European Union to create economic opportunities, to create employment, to create foreign exchange, to create revenue. Our belief is that we have signed a number of agreements but we're not operationalizing these agreements to the maximum and so we want to take the opportunity to familiarize with our colleagues with the opportunities are with this particular agreement. We have done a 5 year review of the economic partnership agreement in the past and it clearly demonstrated to us that as a region, we were not taken advantage of the provisions of the agreement to our maximum benefit and to those of our people. One of the areas we failed to take advantage was in respect to services, so we're trying to put some focus on services. As you're aware, more than 70% of our national economies in the Caribbean are derived from services and so the sector is extremely important to us. I have one anecdote that I use as an example as to how important services are to national economies and I use the anecdote of one Jamaican reggae singer, bringing in more foreign exchange into Jamaica than the entire banana industry in Jamaica, and so he tells you the potential of things like entity services, architectural services and other types of services which we can export are to the European Union create revenue and to create wealth for ourselves."

There will be follow up meetings in Belize. Other CARIFORUM member states have completed sessions such as this one in their respective countries.